Mt Snow Thread

[chuckstah]

In all fairness to Vail regarding Crotched, they are water starved this year. That snowmaking pond is not getting refilled and even if this year were Peaks at their peak effort, doubt Crotch would look too much different. Crotched needs a serious investment to up it's water access some how. Doubt that would be cheap, even if it was, doubt Vail is interested in investing there. That last part we can bash Vail for.

Yeah, I skied a couple hours this afternoon, and the pond is bone dry. They managed to get a few more runs open with not many more to go, but it'll be a while for the rest. Conditions are good for what it is. At least everything from the summit is finally in play to spread people out, and you don't have to ski the same two trails off the top all day.

 

[SLyardsale]

as far as Mt Snow skiing goes on a weekend, this one was pretty good. The hill was more or less closed for wind Mon-Thur. Fri still had wind but lifts ran 1/2 speed and kind of a fun groomer day after having 4 grooming passes on unskied terrain. Sat - Sun nice stuff available with no/minor winds - snow showers on Sat, bluebird on Sun with some glades in play and asshole factor only at medium for both weekend days. Next weekend probably a different story.

 

[shadyjay]

Was there 8am-12:30pm. Was pleasantly surprised at the snow conditions, which actually I thought got better as the morning went on. Winds in the morning were coming right down the liftline on most lifts leading to a cold ride up, but the wind was at your back heading down so it was quite pleasant.... not a cloud in the sky, either! Only rode the bubble once... I'm guessing it had a substantial line most of the day for those that don't like the wind. All the other lifts I rode, I waited at most maybe 5 minutes, if that, otherwise it was ski right up in the singles line to the queue point.

 

[drjeff]

Very solid weekend. Crowds not as crazy as I anticipated (being the non black out weekend for NE local passes in between 2 holiday periods with blackouts) some wind scoured areas were slick, lots of soft snow too.

Snowmakers after a few days off are back at it this evening!

 

[jaytrem]

Couple interesting things this weekend. Halfway down the tree at Carinthia they have a bunch of lollipop closed signs and arrows pointing you towards Mine Shaft. They also have a rope across at the top of the tree where one would typically enter. Haven't seen it "open" all year. Very odd.

Late Saturday I rode up Sundance with a guy who was there for the first time. He was telling me that staff had stopped him and a bunch of other folks for skiing some "unauthorized" trees. He said they went in where there was no rope, but went under a rope to get out. He entered and exited on an open trail. Unfortunately he wasn't sure where is was. I can think if a few places where you could duck a rope to get out if you wanted to, but never really necessary. I just hope my kids don't get harassed when I'm not with them. They spend most of their time in the trees whenever possible. A bunch of them are not on the map, so are they now "unauthorized"? From the website...

Tree Terrain​

Tree skiing/snowboarding areas are not maintained or regularly checked by ski area personnel. Ski or ride at your own risk. All tree terrain is considered most difficult and is recommended for advanced skiers/snowboarders only—use extra caution.
Unmarked obstacles and other natural hazards exist throughout. Never ski/ride alone. It is your responsibility to access and depart from tree terrain using open designated trails.

 

[SLyardsale]

Couple interesting things this weekend. Halfway down the tree at Carinthia they have a bunch of lollipop closed signs and arrows pointing you towards Mine Shaft. They also have a rope across at the top of the tree where one would typically enter. Haven't seen it "open" all year. Very odd.

Late Saturday I rode up Sundance with a guy who was there for the first time. He was telling me that staff had stopped him and a bunch of other folks for skiing some "unauthorized" trees. He said they went in where there was no rope, but went under a rope to get out. He entered and exited on an open trail. Unfortunately he wasn't sure where is was. I can think if a few places where you could duck a rope to get out if you wanted to, but never really necessary. I just hope my kids don't get harassed when I'm not with them. They spend most of their time in the trees whenever possible. A bunch of them are not on the map, so are they now "unauthorized"? From the website...

Tree Terrain​

Tree skiing/snowboarding areas are not maintained or regularly checked by ski area personnel. Ski or ride at your own risk. All tree terrain is considered most difficult and is recommended for advanced skiers/snowboarders only—use extra caution.
Unmarked obstacles and other natural hazards exist throughout. Never ski/ride alone. It is your responsibility to access and depart from tree terrain using open designated trails.

I saw a vail employee (blue coat) go into claim jumper off mineshaft on Wed with a couple of civilians. There was a rope across the main entrance - they went in lower - just above the old sign. I'm unsure if they just went down to tunnel vision and had to dump back out onto mineshaft or if there was a long rope along the downhill side of mineshaft etc. There is so much rope used at Carinthia to create "gates" on to each "park" trail, it mind numbing. One gate to get from the top on mineshaft onto nitro is less than 3 feet wide. must be insurance company loss control rules. a violation to duck a rope to exit trees is so vail.

On another note - ripcord on Wed...

 

[SLyardsale]

MLK Jr day